To Alexander Springs RA - #71-02

January 9, 2007 (Tuesday) Mars Hill, NC to Savannah, GA (341 miles Today 1030 total) - It's rained off and on the whole time we've been in Mars Hill but the temperature has been reasonable - cool but reasonable. Last night ended that! It got down to 25°. Sleeping wasn't bad with our electric heater going but breaking camp was a different story. The electric cord was stiff and coated with frozen mud, from the construction and all the rain, and the leveling boards were hard to pull up. To top it off our NJ flag was frozen in its holder and had to be coaxed out with a bit of force. We finally got off at 8:45. Thanks Bob and Pat for your friendship and generous hospitality. We'll see you on down the road.

The Blue Ridge Mountains were crystal clear against a nearly cloudless ahead of us as we drive south down I-26. Heavy snow was predicted for this area later in the day, one of the reasons we were anxious to get off today, but there was no sign of it. As we came out of the mountains to rolling hills about 11:00 we were hearing that it was snowing heavily along the North Carolina Tennessee border (West of Asheville and Mars Hill) and that schools were letting out early. The thermometer read in the 40s where we were.

The price of gas was $1.97/gal as we crossed the border into South Carolina but we didn't need it. By the time we did the price was $2.29/gal. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

When Mark asked at the Savannah Walmart Customer Service counter if it was OK to spend the night in the parking lot, the response was, "Sure. It's only $50" His shocked response brought a broad smile to the young woman's face. "Just kidding," she said, and reviewed the minimal rules about where to park. When we reviewed our notes from last year we found that we were here, in this same parking lot, on January 9th last year too.

Q034894 Camp Walmart Savannah, GA

January 10, 2007 (Wed) Savannah, GA, to Altoona, FL (273/1303 miles) - It wasn't as cold last night - only 36° at the lowest - but then we are further south and out of the mountains. It was up to 42° as we got back onto I-95 at 7:50. We pulled into the first rest stop, just below Darien, Ga, to fix a late breakfast. On the way back to the highway we notice that there is a sanitary dump station there. We'll make note of that in case we need one at another time.

As we approached Jacksonville, FL we took a detour to Penney Farms. It's been 3 1/2 years since we've been there visiting Mark's mother and wanted to see what changes have been made. They have a new "community center" building - The Commons - and a few newly constructed homes but all in all it looked pretty much the same.

We were here in Alexander Springs Recreation Area (Ocala National Forest) twice last year. In our search for a campsite we saw that Dora, the older woman we'd met during our first stay last year, was here again this year but Bill and Margaret, our neighbors at that time, were not. (We learned later that they'd been here but were away for a week.)

There seems to be no way to connect to the internet here (we're out of the Verizon network) so no email for a few days.

January 11, 2007 (Thur) Alexander Springs Recreation Area, Ocala NF - This has been a day to relax. We tried to sleep late but couldn't make it past 7:00. Showers after three days really felt good even though the facilities aren't heated. The temperature didn't get below 46° overnight and warmed up to 68° during the day. The sun was warm enough to sit out in shorts and T-shirt but the breeze, when it came up, made it a little chilly. Even so it's good to be here.

January 12, 2007 (Fri) Alexander Springs Recreation Area, Ocala NF - There haven't been very many campsites occupied - it's make us wonder why we were given so few to choose from when we came in. Keeping us from choosing reserveable sites is understandable, they might be reserved out from under us, but there are many first-come-first-served sites open that weren't still open that weren't indicated as available. Not that it really matters. We like the site we have. It's at the end of the loop and very big. There is an older couple, maybe a bit older than we are, some distance away on our port side, no one across the way and, of course no one on our starboard side. Palmetto and rhododendron(?) dominate the view out our dining room window and main cabin door. It's been very quiet - until... About 4:00 traffic past our site began to pick up. Two pickup trucks, one with a trailer load of kayaks, now occupy the site across the way and we can see several tents along the road out our living room window. The noise level has picked up too. Over on loop C, where we were last year, there is a huge party going on. College kids? We are hoping that the quiet hour rules will be enforced.

January 13, 2007 (Sat), Alexander Springs Recreation Area, Ocala NF - A walk around the campground, covering all four loops and the public/picnic are at the springs, is just under 2 miles - according to our pedometers. Our walk this morning revealed that most, but not all, of the sites are now occupied. We also discovered the source of all the noise last night. 5 trucks and SUVs are crammed into 2 sites and several good sized tents are scattered through the woods. All was quiet this morning. There had been scuba divers - 2 life guards(?) and 5 patrons - in the springs pond yesterday. Today it was empty - probably too early for them.

January 14, 2007 (Sun), Alexander Springs Recreation Area, Ocala NF - It rained during the night. It wasn't supposed to do that! The chairs weren't as protected as they should have been so they got wet. Minor problem. The refrigerator went off during the night. Major problem. Mark turned it on once around 4:00 but it was off again when we woke up at 7:00. We know exactly what the problem is, we think, because the same thing happened in Q1 - bad circuit board. Unfortunately this is Sunday and tomorrow is a holiday! We spent the morning and half the afternoon turning it back on when it went off while Mark did what he could to clean the propane jet. We finally decided that the time had come to fire up the generator so that it could run on 120 volts for a while to cool it back down. The folks next door don't like generators any better than we do so we waited until they left for a couple of hours. The refrigerator has been running nonstop on propane ever since! Could it be that the problem was just low battery voltage? It doesn't make sense, it wasn't that low, but maybe.

Q035167 Alexander Springs Recreation Area, Ocala NF #31 dry $8.50g B (x5)